A rare two-handled porcelain cup decorated with polychrome narrative bas-reliefs and gold highlights. The two handles, modeled as slender intertwined branches, extend sculpturally across the surface, accompanied by applied green leaves.  The body is entirely animated by complex polychrome sculptural decoration arranged across two sides. One side depicts the Great Flood, featuring human figures and animals swept away by the waters and, in the background, Noah’s Ark. The subject belongs to the Old Testament repertoire documented among the models used by the Doccia manufactory.  The opposite side features a pastoral scene with figures, children, and animals, set in a rural landscape and dominated by a large, radiant, anthropomorphic sun; the subject may correspond to the one documented in inventories as “the shepherd leading the flock to the spring with other figures”—an identification that remains hypothetical at present.  The richness of the modeling, the integration of relief and painting, and the narrative complexity of the subjects exemplify the particular popularity narrative bas-reliefs enjoyed in 18th-century Doccia production, where sculptural models and figurative sources were translated into the miniature scale of functional objects.

Doccia (Florence);  1750–1765.